Kippies Fringe at Market Theatre resonates with SA's past and present

News24

06-07-2025

The Kippies Fringe programme was started by The Market Theatre Foundation's artistic director Greg Homann in 2022.
In partnership with The Art Cave, this year's programme features themes of 100 Years of Kippies Moeketsi, Heritage Month and Women's Month.
Most of the shows have boasted sold-out performances.
After sifting through more than 160 applications, The Market Theatre's Kippies Fringe programme curators and co-founders of The Art Cave, Philangezwi Nxumalo and Tebogo Malapane, curated a themed programme that will resonate as much with theatre practitioners as it will with regular South Africans.
From Youth Month in June to Women's Month in August, The Art Cave team said it had been a gruelling process to select 12 extraordinary experimental theatre projects that would challenge the public's perception of this art form.
The Market Theatre Foundation's artistic director, Greg Homann, who initiated the fringe platform in 2022, said the programme had been temporarily shelved last year due to challenges with a curating team.
Homann initiated the programme with the vision to reenergise the space that, for the most part, had been lying dormant for more than a decade, and give artists access to a platform outside of the traditional theatre space.
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The platform is predominantly a protest theatre space and The Market Theatre opened in 1976 in the same week as the Soweto uprisings.
This, Homann said, was one of the reasons the theatre had always been a safe space for creatives to not only remember South Africa's history, but also encourage conversations about the plight of contemporary South Africans.
'The Hyena's Tuckshop' tonight at the Market Theatre! Kippies Fringe has opened its doors, show starts 6:30 PM.
Webtickets: https://t.co/PBxGf1prQy
In-house bookings: 083 246 4950 / [e-mail] #KippiesFringe #ChildrensTheatre #MarketTheatre pic.twitter.com/T7V3Z1p5lS
— The Market Theatre (@MarketTheatre) June 28, 2025
Malapane explained that, instead of the traditional audition process, they had taken the route of perusing proposals with detailed descriptions of the plays.
This resonated with their vision for The Art Cave, which they co-founded with the intention of creating a platform where producers would explore unconventional ways of making theatre productions.
The Art Cave was conceived five years ago, and we've been running a festival where young, emerging creators showcase their work. We then select one or two plays to be developed and we stage them in collaboration with The Market Theatre Laboratory. We've been doing it consistently since 2022.
Philangezwi Nxumalo
This, Nxumalo said, sparked the partnership between The Art Cave and The Market Theatre Foundation as Homann identified them as possessing the required skills to manage the fringe.
In June, the fringe presented The Hyena's Tuckshop in commemoration of Youth Month. The play honours the lives of South African children who died after allegedly eating contaminated food purchased at spaza shops.
'Kippie Moeketsi [who the venue is named after] would have turned 100 years old in July, so this month is dedicated to him. We have a jazz musical and poetry show titled Sombali (The Florist) that speaks to who Kippie was,' said Nxumalo.
The play, Halala Mr Party, which The Art Cave described as speaking of the courageous and generous people who had dedicated their lives to helping others in the creative sector, only to not receive any assistance in times of need.
The production aligns with who Kippie was, as they described him as being among the artists whose contributions were not always met with reciprocity.
For Women's Month, The Art Cave selected a gender-based violence awareness production, as well as a piece that celebrates womanhood and being queer. August wraps with a one-night-only R&B show, however, The Art Cave said that the artist line-up was a surprise.
The productions being staged in September, including Intsusa and Isiwula, will mostly be delivered in the vernacular, in alignment with Heritage Month.
We celebrate our diversity in September and the different traditions and cultural practices. Phila is Zulu, I'm Pedi. Being a man in isiZulu could be different from what this means in Sepedi. The good thing is that we could find ways to relate. I can't learn from Phila unless I understand and pride myself in being a Mopedi man.
Tebogo Malapane
Malapane described Heritage Month as an opportunity to revisit one's roots and remember who one is in order to engage in fruitful cultural exchanges, especially when living in places like Gauteng, where multiple cultures converge.
Malapane added that the danger of being uncertain about one's identity lay in how easy it was for one to get lost when navigating life in multicultural spaces.
This year's programme has boasted sold-out performances for most productions. Malapane and Nxumalo are confident that the fringe will continue to go from strength to strength.
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